


Wasting Time

by ReaderRose



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Papyrus Has Issues, Papyrus-centric, The Papyton Isn't The Focus, Underfell Mettaton, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans, it's just there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 20:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12920121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaderRose/pseuds/ReaderRose
Summary: UNDERFELLEvery night, Papyrus liked to watch TV. It was his only true vice, his one main form of distraction from work and duty. It was how he relaxed, unwound, reminded himself that he was more than just the job. It was not the only distraction he was interested in, of course. He’d had other hobbies in the past.They were all just…beneath him.That was it.





	Wasting Time

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back and completely forgot about it, but it can stand alone, I think! I like it too much to dump in the dump!
> 
> This is generic Underfell. No relation to my other Underfell stuff. Probably. (Though it shares some themes with Saffron and Spice. A less traumatic version of those themes)

 

Every night, Papyrus liked to watch TV. It was his only true vice, his one main form of distraction from work and duty. It was how he relaxed, unwound, reminded himself that he was more than just the job. It was not the only distraction he was interested in, of course. He’d had other hobbies in the past.

They were all just… _beneath him._ That was it.

 

* * *

 

Like cooking.

Cooking had once been calming, but there was little point to the act of cooking when Sans refused to eat the resulting food. Papyrus wasn't very interested in his own creations. Any pleasure he found in anything but plain oatmeal had faded after the time Undyne poisoned his lasagna. She'd given him the antidote right after. Told him she was teaching him a valuable lesson after his magic spilled across her floor. He'd lost a full day to recovery. It was embarrassing and weak. His HP still hadn't quite recovered. It dented his max, and even after gaining 3LV he'd not gained it back to where it had been.

Supposedly there had been a rumor drifting around that he was vying for Undyne's position. There was another rumor that his own brother has started _that_ rumor. But the first was just a rumor. And the second… Papyrus was not the type to feed into idle rumors.

Either way, food no longer had much appeal to him.

Lessons learned.

 

* * *

 

Once, he’d enjoyed reading. Loved it, perhaps, even.

Papyrus had already read every book he could get his claws on at least five times over, and he worried he might seem too distracted by silly, pointless things if he was caught reading fantasies a sixth time, a seventh. Sometimes he would go over passages in his head, borrow words from favored texts. During quiet moments, he might imagine himself the hero of the stories he’d read. Each was an impossible situation, but he has no difficulty imagining. He was a heroic knight. He was a rebel without a cause rolling down a long open highway beneath the stars.  He was a housewife beginning a new career. A teenage girl at a human high school with her first crush on a boy, who would turn out to not be the one, but her best friend would. A serial killer seeking his repentance. A father. A lover. A werewolf. A monster on the surface.  A bard. A pacifist. A good person. A citizen of a world full of peace kindness. … a fluffy bunny, carefree and loved, surrounded by friends, showing in kisses each and every morning.

The books themselves stayed hidden away in his closet. They were weakness in more ways than one.

He kept a lookout for another tome to hoard away, but books were so difficult to come by. He considered, once, sitting down to write one himself, but he stopped when he realized no one would ever read it. Once he came to terms with that fact, he tried again.

 

Then he realized that someone might read it.

He burned the pages he had penned and didn't write again after that.

 

* * *

 

There had been the puzzles.

The puzzles he once designed were pointless folly, since he always designed them to be solvable. Puzzles, no, _traps_ , were not meant to be solvable. It was fun the first few times, to build a better trap, one without flaws or means of escape, but you build one inescapable spike pit, you've built them all. They were efficient. He needed no others.

The LV gain from the traps going off had been quite a boon. He was proud that he'd discovered a way to automate it. Normally the EXP would go waste, but he'd designed a workaround, and wasn't that the greatest puzzle? It was a grand secret. He was proud!

 

Proud… and some other feeling he dared not name.

His traps were so ingenious that he'd found it appealing to put up signs, bragging next to each and every hidden trap, gloating over his great accomplishments, how inescapable, how impossibly deadly. The EXP gain had drained to a trickle since then.

They were perfect traps, and perfect signs. There was no need to replace them.

He no longer needed to design another.

 

* * *

 

The computer had been an amusing distraction for a while. Assembling it had proven difficult. He had not known at first that there were missing parts from the machine he'd acquired, and then once he realized, it was still rather difficult to find what as missing. For as much as he loved puzzles, this wasn't really like one. There were many things that could theoretically go in the missing spots. The case allowed for many shapes and sizes, and the few manuals he had found were for devices unlike his. But together with some guess work and clever thinking, he'd solved the case and found the parts.

He'd been so excited, he nearly called Sans into his room to show him his accomplishment! But then he remembered: Sans didn't care. At all. And Papyrus didn't want him and his filth in his room.  Because he was smelly and terrible and they hated each other. So he'd made up some sort of an order once Sans reached the top of the stairs and kept his achievement to himself.

Undernet had been exciting, though! Anonymity had held a great deal of appeal to him, and monsters were of course cruel as ever behind the screens, where no one could strike back or dust them. But there were little things, secret things monsters would not say aloud. Recipes and encouragements. Stories no one would tell in person. Jokes. Writings. Ideas and ideals. Undernet resembled the world he liked to pretend was possible, and it made him almost believe it. Even reading the occasional word against his public persona could not dampen his joy whenever he logged on.

It made him feel _hope._

But Undernet was restricted now. The orders had come from the King himself, and everything Papyrus had enjoyed about his computer vanished.

Hope was probably too dangerous to cultivate, anyway, and his posture had been worsening the more nights he spent his desk. He'd disassembled the computer by force and packed it away.

 

He'd also disassembled the machine in the basement several months after. Sans no longer gave it any effort, and he felt that the time was wasted. It was impossible alone, and he would not ask his brother to help him. Not with this.

They didn't talk to each other enough to ask favors anymore. He could have ordered him to work on it with him, but no. That crossed a line, he was sure. Besides, he gave Sans enough orders. Papyrus would resent him if he needed to give him even more.

 

* * *

 

And so, all that was left to do to wind down was the television. There was only one channel, and only one program.

It was propaganda. 

A robot would always appear on the screen, boxy and commanding, with a voice like honey and static. He reminded everyone about the true meaning of the underground. Sometimes he did little skits, other times he just talked, and there was something disarming about it. Soothing. No matter how rough the day he'd had, Mettaton made him feel better.

It was a mix of things. Admiration for the entertainer ranking much higher than he'd admit. He commanded respect, but also charmed the viewer. He engaged the audience. He oozed charisma, and… Papyrus was jealous. He could admit that to himself. Mettaton didn't even need to kill anyone to have that effect. No one knew the robot's LV. It didn't matter. He was respected regardless, maybe even… Loved?

Probably not, but that popularity was so… appealing.

He watched every night. He never missed.

 

… At least until one night, while Sans was in a mood, his brother made a quip about his having a “crush.” Apparently, Papyrus’s expression had been particularly amusing, and Sans laughed and laughed like his ridiculous folly was actually true. _Which it wasn't._ And red faced with ~~shame~~ anger at such insolence, Papyrus had failed to yell back, posture, make a threat, make a “promise”, stand his ground… something!

If it wasn’t shame before, it became it when he realized he had no retort. Shame, and something else he dared not name. Not ~~guilt~~ the other thing. Something else. Something worse.

He just sat there, embarrassed, the last of his softer emotions blatantly on display in front of the brother who had given up on him, who pushed him away until he pushed back, who told him he needed to be strong, but was never strong himself.

The transgression passed. The joking subsided. The laughter faded.

 

Papyrus stopped watching the show.

And it was the only show he watched. Because it was the only show there was. 

 

So television was out, too.

 

* * *

 

So, Papyrus trained. Stronger, stronger, stronger.

It’s what was left after he left everything else out.

 

He ate little, slept never, dreamed of nothing, admired no one, and abandoned aiming anywhere but up and up and up. He built no puzzles, took down the signs, let the machine, the computer, the books, and his soul gather dust.

He wasn't happy. But he gave up on trying to be. He wasn't meant to be happy. He was meant to be strong.

 

So he got stronger.

 

 

 


End file.
